Syria Jihadi Poetry in Russian

Via websites and social media, Russian-speaking militants share new poems about Syria, as well as older „classics“ about the insurgency in the North Caucasus.

Poetry may sound like an odd pastime for Islamist militants.

But in many cases the poems are a unique vehicle for their authors to express emotions and opinions — like grief, sadness, and frustration — that are otherwise taboo within the rigid ideology of Islamic State (IS) and other militant groups in Syria.

The poems also help shape world views. While the older works focus on the domestic insurgency against Russian forces in the North Caucasus, the newer Syria poems situate their readers within the wider world of perceived global jihad.

Poems written by women — mostly the wives or widows of militants — usually share personal experiences and emotions about having one’s husband join a militant group, and about how to cope when he is killed.

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[Akhmad] Daghestansky, the nom de guerre (and nom de plume) of a Caucasus Emirate militant in prison in Russia,  (…) also wrote a two-part poem praising Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (who was himself a poet) but says he is content to have „lived in the epoch of the Warrior Osama“ even if he is physically in Russia. / Joanna Paraszczuk, Radio Free Europe